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AGING WITH ORION

Missing Orion, but he will soon return to the Northern Hemisphere skies…

(I) ORION AT TWENTY
After meditating in Neolithic darkness
A tranquil universe is born
While camping at the folk festival
Guitars and violins
Chants and poems echo
With a new moon making visible
Stars and planets joining Orion
In his nightly romp up high
Through the speckled night sky
Venus, Mars, Pleiades
(Those seven sisters smiling upon us)

(II) ORION AT FORTY:
When Orion peels himself off
The black backdrop of the celestial ceiling
And his dog Sirius herds him to my door
I will shake the star-dusted golden glitter
From the halo of hair that I wear free and curly
And as the earthy music soars and sinks
While minor chords weave a robe so warm
I will sharpen the dagger hanging from his waist
And welcome the result of being chased
By the winter Star Man who has come at last…

(III) ORION AT SIXTY
Navy blue Southern sky so reachable
Here he is, once again, tonight
Stretched out, over my head
My legs apart, as wide as his
Dog at my heels
Lift my arms and double high five him
Balance deserts as I stumble into a terracotta pot of ginger
No dignity in old age
But my hands, for a brief blink of time, touched the stars

Orion is the only star cluster my feeble eyes have ever been able to recognize as a constellation (I’m still looking for the Big Dipper!) In my travel diaries I called it the Hot Pants Constellation, because… it looked like a pair of hot pants in my 20 year old 70s perception.

A great mystical feeling Clarissa, with the time lapse capturing the enduring mystery and magic of Orion. 💛 I don’t know why it’s so alluring, it’s just a bunch of stars 🙂 , but it even appears in Rutger Hauer’s famous soliloquy in Bladerunner: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion…” ⭐️